I don't think anyone would challenge this analysis but at the end of the day you may hit the lottery and have lightning strike your house. That said, are you saying if you do get hit the time and effort to re-build your home, loosing all your personal momentos and the value of your familie's lives is not worth the $2,000 one time expense to mitigate a catastrophic event like this?

Having your house burn down here in the Villages is also a very low probability but does that mean you shouldn't waste your money on smoke detectors and or fire extinguishers?

You should go over to that home that was recently destroyed over in Amelia and see if that influences your decision.

Stu, it is pretty scary but i've found most of my friends who have a LPS installed here in the Villages had suffered a lightning strike in a previous home.

Yes. the LPS will prevent the lightning from entering your attic. Also, the LPS company will bond the grounding grid to your gas manifold as well. Remember the purpose of the LPS is to direct the charge safely to ground via the LPS grounding system and not let it enter and richochet aroung your attic and home possibly killing one of the occupants.

The bottom line is stay away from the villiages

You are talking to the lightning -- right ? You want the discharge to stay away !!

Six years ago, ours was $1,700 for a medium sized house (2 car & cart garage). That was using copper wire versus aluminum. Note, no home with lightning rods has ever been hit in The Villagers -- which means all those that have been hit did not have lightning rods.

So far, houses in The Villages that have lightning rods have never been hit by lightning. And just in case, I had our cheap (yellow) corrugated gas lines replaced with black iron piping.

No, not unless they were grounded with at least two 10 foot, steel (copper coated) rods -- which is how the lightning rods are grounded.

No. There have been many examples where nearby trees were not hit and yet a home was hit. And, many years ago, a big tree next to my home was hit and it's root system channeled the strike into my home -- causing lots of electrical damage.

In The Villages -- only homes without lightning rods have been hit and/or destroyed by fire.

Had A-1 install lightning rods. Some months later lightning struck the house. Had no damage but the TVs were out for about 20 minutes. Glade I have lightning rods.

Are these non-metal rooves ? Shingle ?

Would be nice to find online somewhere the stats on shingle vs metal roofing and lightning penetration.

Lightning Protection for Buildings with Metal Roofs | 2017-07-21 | Building Enclosure

Lightning is a powerful, destructive force of nature and will strike a building regardless of its type of roofing. Metal roofs do not attract lightning strikes; nor do metal roofs protect a building against lightning.

The only way to protect a building is with a properly designed and installed lightning protection system (LPS).

Do you contend that lightning has never gone towards a home with lightning rods? (the lightning rods were unnecessary)

Or, are you saying that when lightning did threaten homes with with lightning rods the LPS absorbed the strike before it could reach the home itself? (the lightning rods worked as designed)

No home in The Villages has ever been damaged by lightning -- only those homes without lightning rods.

I also suspect a weak point for lightning damage or entry could be any rusty areas of a metal roof. Conductivity and resistance is compromised if the path has rust, not to mention the water penetration factor too. Seems and peaks tend to be the first-to-rust locations.

I suspect the number of homes in TV that have been hit by lightning is very low, and the number of homes with LPS is very low. So, the probability of lightning striking a home with LPS is very, very low.

Does anyone know if this presentation is available online?

No, because it is continually updated. Len Hathaway gives this talk many times each year to various clubs and groups -- and once a year at the Weather Club.

Like flood Insurance

Nevermind, found his recent video presentation from the POA meeting.

Are there any powerline techs in the audience?
Notice that there's a lighter weight line running along the top of power lines, especially the high tension lines. That line is an artificial ground, placed there to afford lightning protection to the towers and power lines. I've witnessed those lines taking lightning strikes and saving the grid they were on from outage.

So... it seems to me that there should also be a "cone of protection" from these lines. We live in Chitty Chatty which has a high tension set of lines running right down the middle of the village. Is it reasonable to imagine the protection on those towers provides a cone of protection for nearby homes? If so, to what distance?

One model shows Protection @45 degrees from perpendicular or for a distance equal to the height of the ground wire.

Another model would use a 150 ft diameter arc tangent with the wire and the ground.

Unlikely homes are that close.

Agree with Altavia. I doubt if there are any homes close enough to the Duke transmission line right-of-way to receive any benefit from their lightning protection system.

The grounds can be widely spaced for power transmission so wondering if there is risk of of a side flash from the power lines to a home?

The homes are not close enough for a side flash, HOWEVER, if you are standing next to a tower when the line gets struck there is a very real possibility that you will be struck also. The smaller overhead wire at the top of some lines (typically called a static or ground wire) is there for the protection of the conductors below from a lightning strike. Lastly, the homes would be outside the 'cone' of protection for the power lines. While I am not a transmission engineer, I was a profession electrical engineer with an electric utility for over 40 years.

A-1 and Triangle seem to be the two local companies. Is one better than the other? Are there other companies to consider?

I used A-1 and am very satisfied with them. If you attend one of Len Hathaway's "lightning" talks he lists the local vendors which follow standard procedures -- and A-1 is one of them.

Phone App Question
 

While this thread is about home protection, does anyone have a good phone app that alerts to approaching lightning? I'm looking for one that alerts when the lightning is about 10 miles away, so that I have time to get inside. Or off of the golf course.

WeatherBug does. I also downloaded the SumterCountySheriff app. They send out alerts from the NWS along with other useful information.

My Lightning Tracker is a good app for monitoring lightning strikes all around the world in close to real-time.

My Lightning Tracker | jRustonApps

John Sherlock at Lightening Defense has 50 yrs experience.

https://lightningdefense.com/

Thank you!

Thanks!

Thanks to all who helped. I'll give them a try. :MOJE_whot:

We went with Triangle because Bobby the owner of the company has an incredible amount of experience and knowledge with LPS. For those who know a lot about LPS he's really interesting to talk to. He also goes over the rest of your electrical system reviewing and giving you information about surge protectors and other devices to protect your home. Good lightning protection is a layered system and he will explain how it works so you are protected. They also do a lot of commercial work which has to be done to exact standards. They installed the LPS systems in Brownwood. I hear Danny at A-1 is also very good as well. You can't go wrong with either company.

The only difference that i can tell between the installation of A1 vs Triangle is A1 drills a hole in the roof into the soffit to run the ground wire to the side of the house where Triangle goes over the gutter avoiding these extral holes. Both methods are fine and i'm sure A1 seals everything well but in my opinion less holes in the roof the better. Also some day when your roof needs to be replaced it's easier to re-connect the system using the method that Triangle uses.

The one big thing is make sure no matter who you get is to request that a grounding test be done with your job. There usually isn't a problem with the soil and the ground rods here in the villages But you don't know if it's not tested.

Once installed you can have your LPS system inspeced every 3-5 years to insure that the grounding and the rest of the systems is in good working order. There is also a web site by Frank Criste with lots of Lightning information. Go to lightningprotectionthevillages.com Frank as with Len Hathaway are two experts here in the Villages on Lightning. They will explain the topic in easy to understand terms and will give you the facts. From there you can decide if you want to make the small investment in a LPS to maybe save your home and life some day. We are lucky to have them here in the Villages.

Agree, plus I wonder how a minimum bend radius is maintained running the cable through a hole?

Correct! It's interesting, when bike riding this morning i looked at a couple of homes with the ground cable going through the roof and the bend is almost 90 degrees when it goes into the fitting penetrating the roof which i believe is too tight.